By Tessa Curtis, principal, Vision Consultants.

Companies often talk about being client-centric. It’s now a mantra in the service sector and in professional services, firms battle to care for clients more than their rivals. Looking after customers is what every business, big or small, now understands it must do and most want this reflected in their corporate PR and communications.

Overall, this is a massive and welcome change from the start of my career, when many organisations really did not put their customers first – or, for that matter, care much what they thought. A combination, perhaps, of privatisations, greater competition and a hefty dose of American service culture has taken things in the UK in a more positive direction.

But COVID-19 is sorting the wheat from the chaff. The pandemic has exposed the reality, namely that whilst many firms talk the talk on customer-centricity, far fewer walk it as well. Those that are doing a good job may have something to talk about, but I’d advise many more to keep quiet. And the size of a company is no guide to getting things right.

Take the bigger boys. Virgin Atlantic, and indeed Virgin Media are good examples of how not to treat customers in tough times. And I speak here as one of their customers.

In times when the nation depends on reliable broadband, allowing outages to pass unexplained – for days on end – simply will not do. An online apology doesn’t cut it if your internet is down and you’re struggling to keep your job (if you still have one). And with millions of tax-paying customers are losing their livelihoods, it ill behoves the billionaire Sir Richard Branson to plead for public handouts. Yuck. Others are more deserving.

Small businesses often do no better. Our local garden centre shut at the first opportunity (unnecessarily in my view, since it also has a hardware section). Eventually they popped up online with a very limited selection of plants which could be delivered. The prices however, were usurious and the wait uncertain and long. No good. I found another local option which had managed to stay open and comply with the new rules and have never gone back.

The crisis has clearly also accelerated the shift online and some businesses have risen to the challenge whilst others haven’t. Our local gym, for instance, could have offered all its members online classes from the familiar trainers. Most would have paid. But instead they did nothing, leaving members to find alternatives online that many now prefer.

There is a learning here. It’s no good talking about putting customers first unless you actually do it. As so often in effective comms, evidence is everything. With customers increasingly vocal in social media, unless their experiences are positive, claims of “customer first” will lack credibility, ring hollow or worse, invite ridicule.

After this experience far fewer companies will have much to brag about. The winners have upped their game and would do well to remember that it was this, not what they said, that impressed their customers.

Tessa Curtis is Principal of Vision Consultants, a networked agency specialising in strategic corporate communications.

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